I stopped by Compusa on the way home to pick up a package of blank DVD's and did the 10 minute tour while I was there, always interesting to see what is new or featured and how prices are doing. Two monitors caught my eye, both by I-Inc. One was a 25" for $229, the other was a 28" - yes, 28" - for $299. I've been needing a monitor for a couple months but just hadn't got around to buying one yet, wanting to use my current 19" for a machine that will be moving off my desk at home. But...I try not to impulse buy, so got the DVD's and went home.

Thought about it some more, it was something I was looking for, but which one to buy? In general bigger monitors have been better, going from a 15" to a 17" CRT was a nice improvement, and that trend has continued into LCD's. I currently use a 22" and a 20" monitor at work, and have long found value in having 2 monitors because the way I use Windows is to either maximize or minimize a window, I rarely have multiple windows visible side by side - due to not enough space.

Not critical to have dual monitors at home for me. One reason is that I rarely work at home on my home pc, if "real" work has to be done it's via the laptop while at the dining room table or on the couch, and another is that I've generally had machines running via a KVM and never invested in a better quality KVM that would support dual monitors.

Rambling today am I?

Anyway, $80 difference in price. Not huge, but still, $80. Would a 28" be too big? Would it allow me to actually open multiple windows on screen at same time in a usable way? Same questions for the 25". Isn't there some upper end of monitors being too big when it's on the same desk you're working at?

Went back over Sun afternoon and bought the 25" I-Inc. Has VGA and HDMI, integrated speakers, 2 ms response time, no USB ports. Base screws on to the monitor mount with four allen screws and wrench, both included. Works good enough so far, nice and crisp at the full 1920x1080 max resolution on Win 7 RC, but running below that on my main machine because the video card doesn't support the higher resolution, so haven't really tried it with multiple apps/windows yet.

Sorely tempted to buy the 28" one for work just to see, but will see how this works out first.

It's interesting to watch sizes climb and prices drop, free market at work and some good R&D on costs too. Same as been true in cameras. Now that you can get a 28" monitor for $299 or a 12mp camera for about the same, I imagine the money is in getting people to upgrade. But once you've got that 28" monitor or 12mp camera, why/when will you upgrade again? Anyone see future trends here?

I'm Andy Warren, currently a SQL Server trainer with End to End Training. Over the past few years I've been a developer, DBA, and IT Director. I was one of the original founders of SQLServerCentral.com and helped grow that community from zero to about 300k members before deciding to move on to other ventures.

Comments

Posted by Steve Jones on 18 May 2009

I do a lot of work on the laptop, but I have to say that it's a much lower pace, and I'm less productive than I am with my triple monitors on the desktop. There are definitely tasks that I leave until I can get to the desktop.

I think that my 22" is pretty nice. I am tempted to get a larger monitor, or one that I can pivot, since I think the vertical distance becomes more important for some of the tasks I have, like writing.

Plus I like a larger resolution. I've gone to 1100x800 something, but that's as small as I like. These old eyes need things larger.